NOTE: if you’re looking for quick tips go here
If you’re looking for THE guide to sell your home then start reading…
THE ALL-INCLUSIVE TOTALLY BETTER THAN ALL THE OTHERS
- HOME SELLERS GUIDE -
Everything you need to know to make that big sale go a little easier
Let’s get started
It’s time, you’re finally ready to sell your house. Maybe you’re ready for a new place that’s a little bit bigger, maybe you need an extra bedroom because you’re expecting a new family member or that office would be great since you work from home so much now. Maybe you’re just ready to “upgrade” your lifestyle since your current place doesn’t have a w/d in the unit or you’re tired of looking at the back alley view of the building across the street. Whatever it is, it’s time.
So what do you do now, just put it on the market and someone will come and pay what you want for it right? That’s….unlikely. Besides what does “just put it on the market” mean and how do you do it? Honestly, I wish it were that easy but it’s not. I’ve sold a lot of homes and I can tell you it’s never that easy. So what do you have to do? Well, there’s getting pictures, putting it on the internet, open houses, private showings, collecting all the information that you know people will be asking like; how old is the furnace, has anyone ever maintained the roof, if you live in a building that has Home Owners Association (HOA) fee’s potential buyers will definitely want to know what is included in that fee, and the list can go on and on.
So what should you do next, or even better what do you do first? Getting help from a professional early on will save you a lot of time and headache. I’ve seen people panic a little over what they should do and repeat to me all the things they’ve read from the internet (you’re reading this on the internet right now aren’t you?). You can imagine how quickly things spiral from “just put it on the market” to a wave of uncertainty. Well, the good news is, I’ve got you covered.
Interviewing potential Realtors:
So about to this professional, the one that saves you a lot of time, money, and headache. You should meet with a Realtor to discuss selling your home. Maybe you had a Realtor who helped you purchase your home and you liked them enough to help you sell it now, they would likely have the best insight since they were involved with the purchase. Maybe that relationship didn’t go as well as planned so you’re on the market for a new Realtor, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe your friends sold their house quickly and loved the Realtor they worked with so you want to go with them. Or maybe it’s someone you personally know as a friend, and no matter what they’ve got your back. The important thing is that you find someone you trust and who has a good track record and is doing what is best for you.
This can lead you to a few questions you might want to ask this potential realtor such as:
What do you intend to do to sell my house?
What do you think our house is worth?
How do you plan to get the highest price possible?
What are the things that you need from me, the seller?
All of these are good questions to ask and should give you a good idea of what type of agreement you will be getting into with your Realtor. No Realtor can truly guarantee that your house will sell within a week, but they should at the very least be able to guarantee that no matter what they will do everything humanly possible to make that happen. What do I do? Well, I can’t promise everyone in the City of Chicago will want to buy your home but I can guarantee that everyone in the city who is looking to buy will know it’s for sale and then some.
Why else would you hire an agent? Because this is about to be an extremely emotional process. I tell clients that they need to keep emotions out of this. That is a near-impossible task. You’re somewhat attached to your home in the sense that you have a lot of memories here. You spent years getting it just right and you don’t want to hear about how things are old and dated and that the bathroom is “gross” and it needs to be remodeled. I can only assume that if you’re thinking about selling your home and you just read that someone is calling your bathroom gross that you’re instantly turned off to that person and the conversation is about to ensue.
Now imagine what the rest of the tour is going to be like after that little comment. Buyers have no problem with criticizing the places they tour. I’ve realized that people seem to think that putting down your home is completely fine and why wouldn’t they, they’re trying to lower the value of the home from the start to get a better deal for themselves. Realtors avoid emotional sales, we don’t really care if you think the bathroom is dated. We’ve compared all the similar surrounding properties for sale with full detail and know what the market is demanding for your home. This is a good way to transition too:
Determine what you should sell your home for:
Price competitively. Determining what you should sell your home for sale for can be a tricky task. You have to make sure you’re not looking at your home through rose-colored glasses. Determining the value of your home first starts with what similar homes on the market are selling for. You have to start with of course, the location. Things located within a close radius and similar neighborhood environments are where you base your map.
The location is of course the best place to start. Let’s say you live near a grocery store, your town or cities nightlife scene, and just a couple blocks away from the best school district. With all of these great factors, you wouldn’t compare your home to places for sale on the other side of town located next to the run-down strip mall. After narrowing down your location you dig into some of the obvious points, how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, the square footage, are you comparing your unit to stand-alone homes, high rises, garden units, couch houses, etc. You have to compare your home with homes of similar characteristics. These are the basics of how to compare and price your home, but it’s just the start.
Next, you need to look at the overall quality of your home. Is the kitchen modern, updated, and upon the current trends of HGTV? It doesn’t have to be all of those things, but if it’s not then you need to price accordingly with homes of similar quality. 10-20 years ago granite countertops were being put in every house because granite was the best countertop material that you could get to show off your kitchen and bathrooms. If you had granite then you were current on modern home trends. Before that, it was marble (marble is still great to have but it’s more expensive and therefore less common). If your home had marble then you had the “it” house on the block. Now things have moved to all-white quartz. You can’t get any more opposite of old dark black granite countertops than brand new shiny white quartz countertops. Now that you covered the counters, what about the cabinets? I know, we aren’t even out of the kitchen yet what about the rest of the house?! Hopefully, this helps give you an idea of what comparing, or what Realtors call “comping” out the competition means.
So if you don’t have the shiny white quartz countertops then what do you do?
Minor renovations:
I’m sure you have it in your home or something like it. You need a pen out of what I like to call “the junk drawer” so you reach for the drawer and pull it open from the side of the drawer face. Notice I didn’t say the handle. Why in the world didn’t you just pull the handle and open the drawer? This is the only drawer in the house that you don’t use the handle. Why? Because the handle isn’t screwed in completely. Somewhere along the lines, you lost a screw and one side of the handle is just hanging in there for show, not for function. You know if you pull the handle you’ll end up with a wobbly handle only fastened at one of its two locations. So what should you do? FIX IT!!
It would blow your mind how many little things in a house people just avoid or have the “l’ll fix it before we close” mentality. Sure that’s fine I guess, but what about when you’re showing the home to potential buyers? People touch things when they tour your house. They open drawers and closets, turn on the shower to check water pressure, and open and close windows to see how wide they open and what kind of breeze they get. Just imagine, the buyer is giving a fine-tooth comb approach to your kitchen because they’re starting to pique interest and can see themselves cooking pancakes in the morning for their family. The griddle is hot, the batter is starting to bubble (if you don’t know, that’s when you flip a pancake) and they realized they started 4 delicious flapjacks but have nothing to flip them with! They rush over to the utensils drawer to grab a spatula to flip these golden brown pancakes and boom…the handle comes off. Fantasy over. That one loose handle on the junk drawer tucked in the corner of your kitchen can make your entire kitchen look cheap.
It’s not just this handle it’s all the things like this. The bathroom cabinet door is a little sideways, just tighten the screws. If your cabinets are a little weathered then polish them, if you have a couple of holes where photos used to then patch them, whatever it is for the love of Pete do the little things. I’m not saying that you have to remodel your entire home I’m saying the things you’ve been “meaning to get to” need to be taken care of now. These little things can add up to the one really big thing, selling your house.
If you think that all of this fix the little things stuff sounds silly and that’s no reason for people to not want to buy your house and just tighten the screws themselves then tell me why you haven’t done it either. I needed a lamp for my home the other day, I didn’t buy the one that was the wobbly display model, I PAID GOOD MONEY for the one that was sturdy, well-lit, and didn’t have any fixer-upper like requirements.
When you sell can have an impact:
The timing of selling your home can be important depending on where you are. I know here in Chicago typically the holiday season isn’t as busy as the summer season. I can just feel the buzz and see the difference the closer we get to late February/early March. Potential homebuyers are starting to get the itch, spring is starting to brush away the piles of snow and road salt, and getting up and grabbing a coffee to head to an open house sounds like a fun thing to do on a Saturday before you head to lunch with your friends. Now I know you can’t always determine when you sell your house. Life changes and can happen fast, maybe you need to sell NOW! Do I think you should panic? No, I do not, I think you need to attack the market as you would if you were to sell during mid-summer, competitively and aggressively. You’re not the only one who has to move in winter, it happens quite often.
Now, if you do have the option as to when you sell I would recommend spring and summertime can be more advantageous.
Stage your house to sell:
Declutter, it’s probably the best word to use for selling your home. How do you declutter, you already have all of your stuff neatly put away and jammed into your coat closet, all your winter clothes are put in storage bins and crammed underneath your bed, and all your old coffee mugs and silverware that your grandma gave you when you first moved out (but you never used) are stored at the tops of the kitchen cabinets carefully squeezed into their semi-permanent places high up top? Get rid of that stuff! If you have a storage locker or a basement or attic, somewhere nice and out of the way then put all of that stuff in there. Or better yet, do some spring cleaning and donate the clutter.
Why would you do this if it’s already put away? Here’s one of my favorite home seller hacks. Let’s just take your bedroom closet, for example, this is the one place that every woman on earth will go to look, make some silly joke to their significant other about “how you can have this shelf and I’ll take the rest” and then mentally arrange all of the things she going to fill it with. Now, if you have 1/2 of your shelves cleared of your clothes your closet will appear to be much larger. If the wife looks in and sees your hangers squeezed together with all of your dress shirts hugging up against one another with no room to see through and the shelves are jam-packed with your old T-shirts filling the entire shelf, and your shoes are piled on top of each other practically overflowing out of the closet, then what do you think she’s going to see? You guessed it, a lack of storage space for HER stuff. And what is her husband going to do? The man needs that shelf! If it’s summer, get rid of your winter boots and jackets, they take up massive amounts of space. Hide them somewhere truly out of sight and let your closet show off its storage capacity.
It’s not just your closets that need decluttering, it’s your common areas like your living room also. Unesecary furniture, nicknacks, and other little odds and ends you have can go for now. People don’t want to walk into your home and feel cramped. Think of it this way, people need help envisioning their furniture in your home so it can become their home. If they walk in and can’t imagine enough room for their favorite recliner then you can assume your home is getting crossed off the list. This can also mean removing photos of yourself, they don’t want to see you living there they want to see themselves living there.
Sometimes you have to help the buyer paint the picture for themselves and the best way to do that is for them to see their clothes fitting into your spacious closet, their furniture comfortably sitting in your living room, and their memories and pictures hanging on your walls. Now you know how to stage your house.
Have the information handy
People are going to ask and it’s best to have the information handy. What year is the refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, and washer dryer? Have there been any home modifications and if so when were they done? Did you remodel the kitchen or bathrooms? When was the roof last repaired, replaced, or even looked at? How old is the furnace, and how often did you maintain it? Anything that has an age that comes along with it, should be ready to be provided. People care about these things, A LOT! So get ahead of these questions and have the info ready.
If you live in Chicago and are in a high rise, walk-up, or any other type of home that has a Home Owner Association (HOA) then you should be ready to provide information on how much money is in reserves, are they any upcoming projects or special assessments such as that roof we just mentioned needing some patch or if there an elevator replacement scheduled?
* Reserves are money that the HOA holds to maintain the building. Look at it as a piggy bank for the building. If the building has an emergency like the elevator needs maintenance or the roof is leaking, typically the HOA will use the reserves to pay for these things.
Get people looking
If you want to sell your house you have to get people in the door and to get people in the door you have to advertise. Advertising has started to become an increasingly diversified part of the job. When it comes to the forms of media, the distribution of content and fields of play involved such as the internet, open house signs, 3D tours, fliers in the mail, physical products, yes I said physical products. The advertising portion of real estate has changed greatly over the years especially with the internet. But to save you from that overwhelming topic I’ll give you the basics because really, your realtor should be doing the rest for you. For us, advertising is one of the fun parts of the job.
First, you’re going to need pictures, have a professional photographer come and take photos of your home. By far they take the best-looking photos, I cringe when I see a listing that has cell phone photos for listing photos. Most people don’t know the right way to take photos of their home, to begin with. There are certain angles, preferred lighting and lenses, different tripod variations, and other things you don’t cross your mind when you’re opening up your camera app. Sometimes it’s just better to pay someone to do a superior job than if you do it yourself. Look at it this way, if you spend $150 on getting professional photos, you can likely make thousands extra when going to sell your home. Trust me, it’s worth it.
A thousand words paint a picture
Or is it “a picture paints a thousand words?” It doesn’t matter, you just need to get your wording up to par. Now I’ll be the first to admit that the listing paragraph is certainly second to the pictures but that does not mean it’s not important. Your description of your home should paint a picture of the life you have enjoyed there and the conveniences that the building and neighborhood have provided you. If you’re close to convenience you should highlight this fact, if your home has some little quirks that you find turn the house into a home, or maybe the sun splashes in all day long and brings nothing but joy to your life. Whatever it is, tell people about it.
Want to know another place where you’re written words matter more than the description, and maybe even the photos? It’s a letter written directly to the home buyer telling them all the things written in the paragraph above and a little bit more. Get personal, tell them how your family enjoyed holidays by the fireplace and coffee in the den in the morning. Tell them about the cookouts you had with friends and how the guest bedroom was perfect for when the family would visit. This letter is a secret that people either don’t know about or don’t care enough to use and honestly, their loss! You’re not just telling people where you live, you’re painting them a picture of how to love, you describing a home, not just a house. There is a difference between a “house” and a “home.”
OPEN HOUSE
Open houses are an absolutely great way to get potential home buyers through the door. It gives the home buyer the opportunity to casually tour your home with little to no pressure. They can come as they please at the set times, visit with or without their realtor, and just look without the feeling of everyone in the room having eyes on just them.
So how do you “do” any Open House? First, it starts with Open House Signs. Now if your realtor is good you will have a lot of them, and I do mean a lot. When I hold an open house I place at least 10 signs out canvassing all the hot spots, the coffee shops, dog parks, human parks, grocery store entrances, busy intersections, you name it. Anywhere that gets a lot of foot traffic. If you’re having an open house I can promise you your whole neighborhood will know about it.
Set aside a day and time (if it’s your first week on the market I suggest both Saturday and Sunday) for approximately 2 hours (1.5 hours is fine too depending on everyone’s schedule) so people can come to tour your home freely. At this point, you have the house “staged” and ready to show. Welcome people in, have listings sheets ready for them, have a “why we absolutely love our home and are going to miss it” letter out for interested home buyers to read(check out some more stellar tips) and enjoy your own day outside of your home for the next couple hours.
You have an offer on the table
All that work has paid off! The prepping, the planning, the cleaning, and fixing. Now it’s time to get the most out of the sale. This part typically involves a lot of back and forth and a little bit of compromise sometimes. The exact “how too’s” of this can depend on each deal individually but there are some basic things to keep in mind.
The first offer is almost never as high as you would like. It’s the first offer and you should expect this. I rarely come across a buyer who would like to pay full price for a home no questions asked.
Don’t keep the buyer waiting too long. This comes as somewhat of a respectful thing to do as well as a business-minded tip. The buyer is interested in your home and so regardless of what the initial offer is you don’t want to keep them waiting for too long and have them lose interest or even worse become offended because you don’t take them seriously enough to respond in a reasonable timeframe.
This is the biggest suggestion I have, keep your emotions out of it. I tell my buyer clients this and I tell my selling clients this as well. It’s easy to get emotional, it’s your home! But you have to see it as a business. They don’t see your home where you have all the memories, they see it as the house they want to purchase at a good price and hopefully make their own great memories.
As a little bit of a heads up, negotiations can sometimes take a couple of days. Why? Maybe this is a first-time homebuyer on the other side and they need more time to think it over, or more likely they need to talk to someone else like family, friends, financial adviser, etc and because of that it sometimes can take a little longer to get a response. It could also be that everyone’s schedules can be the cause. You have the buyer, the buyers’ agent, the seller, and the sellers’ agent, the attorneys’, and countless other people who may be involved that can slow down the chain of communication. Regardless of what it is, be prepared to have this take a little longer than you would like, it just happens sometimes.
Inspection
Good news, you’ve gotten through what has seemed like a long and tiring process of negotiating for the sale of your home. The next steps are to have an inspection. The buyer (if they choose) will schedule a day and time to have a home inspector come for an inspection of the property. In Chicago, the typical amount of time for this kind of thing is 5 days but of course, can vary. Since you purchased the home you likely had a home inspection when you purchased it so you know the deal here. In short, the home inspector comes in and looks over everything, the age, and functionality of the appliances, they check the windows, the roof depending on the style of home, the outlets, they look for mold, everything. You name it they’re typically looking for it.
The best way to prepare for this is to clean, again! Have a clean place so everything looks perfect and pristine. Make sure all those little fixes you did before you went on the market (that we discussed) are done and done properly. Some things you can’t clean away like cracks in the foundation, but you can stop all the little nit-picky things from adding up on the inspection report.
A little extra advice I can probably give here is, expect something to come back on the report. Not because inspectors are out there to raise the bill, but because it’s likely something comes up. The good news about that though, it could be minor things that neither you nor the buyer really cares about.
Attorney Review
After you have the inspection it’s time for attorney review. During attorney review, you may have to negotiate any concerns that may have come up during the inspection. It could be something simple like the lock on the bathroom door needs to be fixed or it could cover something more serious that you weren’t aware of, like mold in the attic. Who goes up there to look for that anyway? Whatever it is, this is the part of the home selling process that you will handle these types of things.
During this portion, your attorney will work with the buyers’ attorney to finalize any paperwork, bylaws, land deeds, and all other needed forms and documents that will not only finalize the sale of the property but also clear you of any responsibility of the property after you have left.
It’s time to close!
This day has finally arrived, you are going to sell your house today. On the closing day, you’ll want to make sure of a few things. The first being that you’ve moved everything that you want out of course, but you’ll also want to make sure you have everything you need on your end. By this point, your attorney and realtor should be finishing up their final steps of getting the paperwork ready to be signed and all the house and mailbox keys, door fobs, and garage door openers need to be collected so they can be handed over to the new homeowners. You’ll want to make sure you have everything ready beforehand so there is nothing to hold up the closing.
If you have any lingering questions, now is certainly the time to ask. This is your last chance to find out anything you need to know. Don’t be afraid to ask your attorney or your realtor something that is on your mind, that’s what they are there for. All the bases should have been covered by this point, but things come up so don’t hesitate to ask.
This step of the process is pretty short and simple, show up, smile, sign, and pass the joy of your home on to the next lucky people who get to experience it!
All things said and done
You’re probably going to miss that happy home, at least a little. But people’s lives change and it’s time to move to the next phase of your life and build new memories in your new home. Selling the home you once loved so much can be a bit of a process but now that you know so much about selling real estate hopefully things go a little smoother. I’ve found that a lot of the stress and anxiety come from the unknown, but that’s not a problem for you anymore is it?
